Wireless telephones that incorporate cameras are extremely popular. The ability to capture images with a camera, and to save them to a memory of a wireless telephone incorporating the camera, presents not only new opportunities for using the images to perform certain functions within the context of the wireless telephone, but also new challenges, as users are confronted with the necessity to organize the images.
Perhaps the most common use of cameras associated with wireless telephones is to take pictures of family members; friends; business colleagues; business acquaintances; etc., especially since wireless telephones are networking devices and are used to perform networking functions. Accordingly, many photographs likely to be found in the memories of wireless telephones will contain images of people. As memories of wireless telephones increase in capacity, ever increasing numbers of images will be stored in wireless telephones. As a result, those skilled in the art seek methods and apparatus that facilitate organization of images. In particular, those skilled in the art especially desire methods and apparatus that draw upon or enhance existing functionality to perform image organization operations.
In addition, those skilled in the art also recognize that photographs in conventional wireless telephones serve merely a keepsake or memento function. For example, a person viewing photographs stored in a wireless telephone cannot use the photographs to initiate a communication operation. Those skilled in the art seek methods and apparatus that use photographs in some way to improve the functionality of telephones, and perhaps, to provide a more natural interface for managing communication operations that operates as a supplement to existing text-based contact databases. Such functionality would be particularly helpful to those who meet many people in their business activities. Having access to “functional” photographs could assist such users in following up contacts after a busy trade show, for example, when names in a contact list may not be enough to stir a memory.
As a result, those skilled in the art are particularly concerned with finding new methods and apparatus that use the human component of images to assist in performing communication operations and image organization functions in, for example, a wireless telephone. For example, those skilled in the art are concerned with finding some way to use the human component of images to improve the functionality of contact databases often incorporated in wireless telephones, and possibly to supplement contact databases. In addition, those skilled in the art are more generally concerned with using the human component to improve image organization functionality in wireless telephones containing cameras and other image capture devices.